[narrator] Time is slipping away.
We're running out of days right now.
We're getting down to the nitty-gritty.
[narrator] As winter mining rushes into the final days...
Spring has sprung.
[Shawn] We got to find some gold and we got to get on it now.
[narrator] ...the miners are fighting to make every second count...
You're just one lazy... [bleep]
-I'm going home. -Okay, well go home then.
[Kris] I do everything. I [bleep] do 90% of the work.
There's something wrong.
We've got cold water down there!
[narrator] ...before time runs out...
Oh, my gosh, Emily's in labor.
Damn it. [bleep]
[narrator] ...and their fate is sealed.
I'm about ready to pass out.
[groans softly]
[clock ticking]
[bleep]
[narrator] Shawn Pomrenke is running out of time
to secure his reign as Nome's top gold-getter.
We're running out of days right now.
We're getting down to the nitty-gritty.
We got to find some gold and we got to get on it now.
We're down to just a few days left at best.
My goal was 100oz and to maintain the top spot in Nome.
But McCully's nipping at my heels,
and I'm not anywhere near 100oz
for the first time in a long time.
I'm finally starting to feel the heat,
and if we don't get on good gold today I'm done for.
So moving and grooving.
Time to dig another hole.
We need a new spot and it has to deliver.
Joe and I have been studying the drill logs,
and we feel like this one's our best bet.
So we're gonna tear a new dive hole as fast as possible
and get on it.
I'm just enjoying not shoveling and augering.
This is wonderful.
Watch some mechanical devices do the work.
Let's get this train moving.
Good to go!
[Shawn] Get in the water.
Get wet, get some gold.
-A whole bunch of gold. -Oh, yeah.
I need to hit a paystreak bad,
and we're in last chance territory.
Fingers crossed.
-[laughs mischievously] -Get it done!
Yeah!
[Shawn]
All right.
[Shawn]
-Go ahead and throttle up. -10-4.
Seeing some color over here...
...just east of the dive hole.
Nice.
[laughs]
If you touch 'em they get hard.
Check it out.
Ohh!
[whistle slides]
Oh, he's so cute.
[whistle slides]
There's little flakes of gold all around 'em.
[Joe]
It's a telltale sign there's gold in the area
seeing them poop out gold.
He's seeing them. We're happy.
There you go you little penis worm.
All right.
[Shawn] Yeah, I'm seeing gold in the gravel mix
going down to the clay.
Now you're gonna see it.
And I'm seeing puddles over here.
-[Joe] Oh, yeah. -Puddles.
I haven't seen puddles like this since...
Booyah.
[Shawn] Come on, baby.
Whoo!
Yeah! [laughs] It's just pouring out.
-Booyah. -[Shawn] Whoo!
[Shawn] So much fun.
[clock ticking]
[narrator] Across the ice...
[narrator] Now that his underwater crawler is finally working...
Today, the plan is jump down there first thing,
assess the situation, see how efficiently it's working.
[narrator] Kris Kelly needs to somehow produce a season's worth of gold
in the limited time left this winter.
Okay, we're ready to go.
So, no big shock, this season's been a disaster,
but right now I have a fully-functioning crawler that I believe is kicking ass.
I'm just gonna dive down there, check it out,
make sure it's covering the ground properly.
But most importantly,
to pull off what we need in the little time that we have left,
I need everyone working at the top of their game.
You guys are [bleep] idiots.
You guys are trying to start this [bleep]
but you don't even have the [bleep] cap sitting here.
No, I guess it's just Andy. He's a [bleep] idiot then.
Yeah, and that sure the hell isn't happening so far today.
Where are you going?
-Well go, just go home. -[Andy]
[Kris]
[engine starts]
Fire that other engine up.
[shouting] Mike?
Nevermind, dude. Nevermind.
Andy isn't doing jack today, and this new guy, Mike, doesn't know what he's doing.
So the day is officially a cluster already.
Hey, just go home if you're not gonna be any help.
You know what? You're just one lazy... [bleep]
You need to do that [bleep] yourself.
You know, sooner or later you gotta run this whole operation by yourself,
and you don't, I always see you on [bleep] coffee breaks.
Uh, hot water, hydraulic engine,
dethawed the box, and I started the engine.
What's left after that?
-That's the whole operation I did myself. -Okay, well...
-Are you really going? -I'm going home.
Okay, well, go home then. I don't really care.
And there goes Andy.
Whatever. I'll do everything myself today.
What else is new?
I do everything.
I make the deals, I build the equipment,
I set up everything, I come up with the vision,
I make the working plan, I do [bleep] 90% of the work.
I got to [bleep] hire better people.
My hot water system is up and running.
[Kris] I'm gonna go down and make sure Andy's been effectively moving
the crawler on the ground.
We need to bring in as much gold as possible,
especially this late in the season.
-Check, check. -Loud and clear. Go ahead.
How's your air and how's your heat?
[Mike] Roger.
[bleep]
Okay. Roger.
[bleep]
Roger that.
[Kris] So, Andy's an idiot.
That's the big new story even though that's every day's story.
So I guess I'll control the crawler today,
and I'll do a better job than Andy does anyway.
We're about to find out
if one person can man the crawler all by himself.
So Andy thought he was over here,
and in reality all he did was turn the, you know,
instead of going up and down, up and down,
he's got the crawler turned sideways.
Now he's going up and down sideways.
Just get it back into position and hopefully we can make this work.
-[Kris] Idle-up the pumps. Let's see what we're at. -Okay.
Okay, here we go.
The cameras are working good.
Everything's working real good.
Look, now I'm on to brand new fresh cobble.
There you go. See that rock pile out of my way?
And bam, I just cleared the cobble.
We're getting gold, we're moving the material.
Everything's going good.
Every time I go up and down like this we get gold.
I'm good at getting gold.
Everything else I don't know [bleep] about.
[clock ticking]
[singing]
[laughs]
♪ La, da, da, da, da ♪
[narrator] Short on time and short on gold,
Jane is putting the team's fate
in the hands of their rookie diver.
Eddie's gonna dive today. His second dive under the ice.
Hopefully he does okay. Hopefully he gets us some gold.
Got a new mask.
I'm ready to get down on the bottom
and start producing for the team.
[Jane] So, yeah, we're not in a great spot.
We have a teeny weenie bit of gold
and any day could be our last.
Jeff's our lead diver,
and he's been down a lot of days in a row and he needs a break.
We're sending down Eddie whose only had, like, one ice dive in his life
and it wasn't exactly flawless.
[Eddie on radio] I need the pump!
-[Jeff] Eddie! -[Jane] Pull him up.
Now it's all on him.
No big deal.
There's just a potentially disastrous
ice mining season on the line.
Hey! Knock, knock.
-How you feeling, buddy? -Feeling good, man.
[Jeff]
It's time to go to work, dude.
[Eddie]
[Jane] Eddie.
Whoo!
[Jeff]
[Eddie]
Damn it. [bleep]
Ow!
[Jeff] What are you doing?
I'm on the bottom. [chuckles]
-[Jeff] -[Jane]
[Jeff] All right, remember, turn that knob in a little bit.
If you're threading it clockwise it's gonna go in.
We got it.
-[Jeff] You got it? -Got it.
[Jeff] You ready to put some materials in the box?
-[Eddie] -All right, let's go.
[Eddie laughs]
-[Jane] -[Eddie]
Roger that.
[Jeff]
I can hear you, Eddie. It's Jane.
How's it looking?
-[laughs] -[chuckles]
Ohh, do you see any gold yet?
-[Eddie] Oh, yeah. -Ahh.
-[Eddie laughing] Oh, yeah. -[chuckles]
[Jane] I'm so thrilled and, honestly, relieved right now.
This is exactly what we needed.
Hopefully he can keep this going and we have a big day,
which would be our first.
[Eddie]
He's loving it down there.
Good morning.
[Vernon] All right. Good morning, guys.
You ready to get some gold today or what?
I'm ready. Here we go.
[narrator] As winter races to a close,
Vernon Adkison is ready to double down.
Here we go.
Winter has been a complete disaster,
and now I'm desperate to get something in the kitty before the season shuts down.
And, honestly, that could be any day.
Let's go get wet.
So I'm gonna get two divers in there
and hope to hell we make up for some lost time.
[engine splutters]
[engine starts]
Engine and prompt are going. The generator's going.
Hot water is boiling. We've got air.
We've got divers getting ready to suit up,
and then, you know, if we get on the gold
I'll have a hard time pulling these guys out of the water.
The thing about putting two divers down at once
is it multiplies the things that can go wrong.
Every variable is in play, from lines getting tangled to equipment failure.
It's a risky approach but also has the potential for high rewards.
At this point, I've got no choice but to go for it.
Testing. One, two.
[man]
Can you hear me?
Okay, I can barely hear you on your mic.
I can barely, barely hear you.
[Vernon] Larry, could you hear me?
I heard you.
Try it again. Try it again. Comm check.
[Larry]
Okay, you hear me.
I heard you loud and clear. That's Scott's mask.
That's Scott's mask on your cable?
[Vernon] Okay.
[sighs] [bleep]
[Vernon]
Right now, we've basically got one functioning comm line for two divers.
That's far from ideal.
I can hear Vernon good, but he can't really hear me very good.
[Vernon] That's their lifeline to top side.
If something goes wrong we can't help them if we can't hear them.
So Larry's decided to push forward and hope for the best,
so we'll all have to be extra vigilant.
How is your air, Larry?
Okay. All right.
How's your water temperature?
[Larry]
[Vernon] This is saying 120.
It's getting too much God damn cold water in it.
Reduce the amount of cold water
that's going into it significantly.
How's your hot water now?
[Larry]
God damn it!
This... [bleep]
-[man] -There's hot water going out there.
Why is it not going out?
[Larry]
There's something wrong. I've got 120 degrees plugged into your system.
Stand by.
They've got cold water down there.
Why is hot water not going down there?
Where's the end of his umbilical?
Is it flowing through now?
Larry, I was outside for a minute,
but you've got hot water going down there.
I don't know why it's coming out cold on your end.
I do not know.
[Larry]
It's hot now?
[Larry]
All right, hang on. I'm turning it down again.
[Larry]
How is your water now?
What did you say?
[both] Throttle up.
Throttle up.
[Vernon] One thing after another.
We're running out of time.
Then I'm going the wrong way.
[narrator] Kris Kelly is learning to crawl before he can run.
I really wish
I could figure out the controls, you know,
and just, uh...
um, work without thinking.
But I'm not to that point by a long shot, you know.
See where all those rocks are coming from, but...
Where are those coming from?
Okay, another problem that can always happen
no matter what, if you suck up
too much material at once,
then you get a bunch of beaten hand size rocks
and they all fit up there perfectly.
You will get a rock jam no matter what.
See the rocks come back out of the nozzle?
They shouldn't be coming out like that at all.
[man] I got it.
That's right there means I got a rock jam.
Man.
I may have to dive underneath the water
and take care of it.
I'll probably just take a sledge hammer.
Turn the pump engines off.
[man] Okay.
Maybe, just maybe, trying to do this all myself
is kinda stupid.
I'd be better off if Andy was here.
But I pissed him off this morning
so I don't think that's gonna happen.
All right.
That's awesome.
I know I talk a lot of crap about Andy, but sometimes...
Who is this guy?
[Kris] Sometimes Andy's pretty amazing.
Andy causes me a lot of grief,
but when the chips are down, he's always there.
My brother and I had some issues
so I went home.
Now here I am back to work.
We have a rock jam to get out.
Then go back out and make money.
Were gonna send Taylor down.
Hopefully, he can get rid of the rock jam
I mean, it doesn't take [bleep] of time.
Andy brought another person with him, Taylor.
So Taylor's gonna go down, fix the rock jam.
Andy's gonna operate the crawler
and I'm gonna oversee the entire operation.
See?
Now this is how it's supposed to work.
This is teamwork.
We gotta jump down there,
Climb in with the flood camera a few times.
We turn back on the pump
and we see if we got rid of the rock jam.
The pipe goes up and down, right?
It's a pipe.
I want you to go underneath it
and hit underneath the pipe.
Not on top, not on the sides.
Underneath it.
[Andy] The suction pipe.
Are you at the gold...
Hit the pipe underneath.
[Kris] Okay, well I'm gonna turn on the pump engines
and we're gonna see if you got rid of it.
Watch the box.
See if material's coming up.
Yes.
It's going good. Rocks keep coming out.
Why don't you come up?
So I came to the conclusion,
-What conclusion? -...one person cannot [bleep] run this himself.
[Andy] Oh.
So everything's cool, you know?
Now it is.
[Kris] Everything is cool.
It's like an afterschool special.
Today I learned a very valuable lesson.
Good job with that rock jam, buddy.
You're... You're killing it.
It's better to have a good team around you
than insist on doing everything yourself.
See how it moves big rocks, dude?
What he does is,
he bulldozes everything out of the way
and then he comes back in and get us all the material.
It's also critical your team doesn't suck ass.
That's another part of the lesson.
[Shawn] Oh, come on, baby.
Yeah.
How you doin' down there?
I am north east, stretched out all the way.
[Joe] It, uh, good work.
Boo-yah.
[Shawn] How many hours is that?
Ooh.
I'm feelin'.
I'm about two down here.
Yeah, let me know whenever you're ready to come up.
Yeah, sure.
[Shawn] Oh!
Look, I found one of those penis worms.
I found one.
Oh, yeah.
Oh!
I'm about to bring it up.
All right, he's got one of those little gold poopin' slugs
closed tight in his hands headed up top.
When you see these little slug things,
you always see gold around them.
Maybe they're puking the gold out.
[Shawn] Who knows why there's usually gold
where these little guys live?
Joe thinks it's because they eat the hard clay,
that's where the gold is, then they poop it out.
Whatever it is,
I consider it a real good sign whenever I see 'em.
[man] Hey, it looks like gold.
I'm tellin' ya.
Now it's time to check the box,
see if the little worms brought us some gold.
Seein' anything down there, Joe?
Yeah, it's working all good.
[Shawn] This spot rocks. We crushed it.
The box looks amazing, and just in the nick of time.
Hopefully, this is the way how it's killing.
[man] The penis worm does the trick.
[Vernon] All right, Larry.
How's your water?
[sighs]
[narrator] One diver is proving
just as tough as two for Vernon Adkison.
Right now, it's set at 120 right here.
Goddammit.
What's the temperature?
Is it still frying?
Oh, I'm about to [bleep] major pass out.
[groans]
I really [bleep] pass out here.
[grunting]
How about clearing that away for me?
I might have to lay down.
I gotta go...
see if I can get my chest feeling better.
[grunts]
So much for trying to relieve stress.
Larry says he can't find jack anyway
so he's coming up.
This day went into the can in a hurry.
I can't find a spec of gold to save our life.
There's nothing here.
Not good.
Vernon's not gonna be happy.
There's nothing there.
We can check the box.
It's a huge space but very, very little.
Well...
As the old saying goes,
"There's no sense in beating a dead horse."
Shut it down.
[narrator] While Vernon packs it in...
across the ice...
[man] Yo, Eddie.
[Eddie] Yeah, I'm just feeling really good about it.
Looking really good.
You know, though there's a lot of sand,
we can still get through the sand pretty well.
There's a pretty good little clay layer here.
[man] How're you going, bud?
[narrator] Eddie Farler's second dive
is proving to be a golden road to redemption.
[Eddie] It looks like I'm getting close
to the end of the whole...
[man] Okay, sounds good. I'll see you at the top.
[Jane] How you doin', Eddie?
Eddie really came through.
We might not be anywhere near our goal,
but at least we're starting to get some gold.
-Whoo. -[Jane] You okay?
That's all we can ask for at this point.
-Come on. Yeah. -That was cool.
So I don't wanna get cold, I mean, I really didn't wanna
-come up at all. -[man] All right.
[Eddie] 'Cause I was comfortable.
I was working it. Like, I'll just do it again.
Yeah, but it's over there.
-Oh, I know. -Oh. [laughs]
[Jane] After a whole season of everything breaking down
and a lot of fighting
and got getting very much gold,
we might end on a high note.
How sweet would that be?
-You're not getting that rock. -Oh, I am.
If I were you, I would go backwards
and push all 40 in.
[narrator] Nome has become the city of brotherly love,
as the crawler brings the Kelly team together.
I turned the whole machine this way,
drove forwards, like, all the way back.
[Kris] Okay, everything's good,
my job here is done.
Andy's actually killing it
and Taylor rocked the jam.
Honestly, things have definitely turned around.
I think it's a little late,
but repudiation is on track like it hasn't been this season.
How's that, buddy?
[Kris] That's beautiful.
That whole area right there is gone.
-Yup. -[Kris] We don't go any further than that.
Right.
[Kris] If we ended the day,
we kinda don't wanna go home.
I really we... we had
the energy for another ten hours right now.
We're doing great.
I know there's gold in the box.
What?
Yeah. No, that, you're do...
You're doing a great job.
I told you, you're gonna love this thing.
Okay we're uh... We're done.
Let's get the hell out of here.
Let's see if we can see gold in the box, though.
Look at down there, all that gold.
-[man] Holy [bleep]! -[Kris] Look at all that gold.
Seeing the box filled like that,
despite all the crap and all the BS
that we had to go through this season,
my plan is still a winner.
And moving forward,
I know we have the right ingredients for success.
Here, look at all that gold.
-[man] Oh, yeah. That's nice. -[Kris] That's real nice.
Everything looks great.
Give me some love, some love.
We filled it so good.
Oh!
Bring it front.
I don't like this.
There's our camp over there.
[cellphone ringing]
Yeah, text's coming in. [sniffles]
Oh!
Oh, my God. Emily's in labor.
There's a exclamation point and a happy face.
Oh, my gosh, It's finally happening.
Oh, wow. Oh, my gosh.
Oh, hearted it back.
It's a location, now.
I'mma be...
She's gonna be a mom!
[man] There's no right or wrong way.
Don't mind, of course, he's the best.
[narrator] Vernon Adkison may have doubled down,
but it certainly didn't result in double the gold.
[man] Work hard, clean it up, put it on the scales.
That's it.
Down when so I can snip up some of that mercury.
[man] Yeah. [laughing]
Keep me fast.
Tried to get two divers down and barely got one.
That's the season for ya.
It's slim pickings now.
We'll see how we do, but it's looking dark,
to say the least.
[man] To the scale.
Don't trip, don't sneeze.
[Vernon] Let's see what we got here.
That's an ounce.
Two ounces.
Come on, baby.
Two...
and a half ounces.
[narrator] Two and a half ounces
was worth about 4700 bucks.
What can I say?
[narrator] And Vernon continues to limp to the finish line.
[Vernon] We went to a spot that had already been worked,
that was part of our problem.
Some seasons you just chill it up here
and some seasons you get what we've got here...
which is the pit.
But, hell, I'll take two and a half ounces at this point.
Now, we'll probably... We'll get more time
on the box and get a couple of strong cleanups
to finish it up, fingers crossed.
There's the power.
[chuckling]
It's gold.
-It's gold. -[man] It's gold.
[Vernon] And gold is good.
[narrator] Just outside of Nome...
[man] One...
two... three...
-[both grunting] -[man] Ah, yeah.
[narrator] As winter mining nears its expiration date,
Shawn readies for what could be...
the final way out of the season.
[man] Yummy, yummy.
Looks good. Looks good.
We know it was good grout
but hopefully it was great grout.
Now we will get to find out
how close we are to that 100 ounces
and see if we can get to the top of the gold count.
Nice little pile.
That was a good haul.
[Shawn] Yeah.
Ooh.
Five... six... seven...
15...
20...
5.2.
What a...
[narrator] 25.2 ounces cashes in at just under $48,000
and Mr. Gold may be peaking just in time.
-Yeah. Hell, yeah. -Looking good.
-Looking nice. -Yes.
Looks like our little wormy friends were on the money,
literally.
Now we gotta stay on the spot,
suck up every ounce we can
before mother nature calls it quits on winter.
It's gonna be tight and it's gonna be fight.
But we're ready for it.
-Nice haul. [laughs] -[bleep], yeah.
Another paycheck.
Right on, right on, right on.
[narrator] Back in Nome...
[narrator] Time may almost be up
on the ice-mining season.
[cellphone ringing]
Aww!
Emily had a... baby.
[narrator] But 550 miles south east, in Homer,
a new life is just beginning.
Oh, my God. Not a child birth. She's crazy.
Emily had her baby.
A little mining baby.
Baby Evelyn is eight pounds and eight ounces
and 20 inches long.
Mom and baby are both doing great.
Oh, my God, congratulations!
Oh, they're sending me a picture.
That is a newborn.
How cutie.
[gasps] Look at that.
Looks adorable. Those blue, blue eyes.
So precious.
She did it. What badass!
Whoo!
[applause]
[narrator] Mr. Gold takes charge...
while the rest of the fleet clings to life.
-On the season finale of Bering Sea Gold... -[man shouts] Yeah!
It's the end.
All systems are go.
We're running out of time.
We gotta move swiftly.
[Vernon] We need to finish with a bang here.
[Kris] I went out on a huge limp for this gold crawl.
I owe a bunch of people money.
[Vernon] There's something wrong.
[Kris] The [bleep] is going on!
A big storm is coming.
Just got about 20,000 pounds
worth of gear out here on the ice that we're gonna go through.
That makes me really upset.
...crop out.
[woman] Whoo!
Can you hear me?